I’ll be covering Marketing Communications and PR at the IABC conference in New Orleans from tomorrow.
No, not live blogging –though who knows what might come up, as this is a hot button issue at this conference! Off to an eventful start –with a fight delay on my favorite airline out of Phoenix.
The latest update is that there’s been a security breach at LAX, with people drenched when sprinklers went off.
Discussing what constitutes a good logo, is as safe as discussing what makes up a great cup of tea.
In the latter, it’s anything from the leaf structure, to the mountain elevation in which the shrub is grown, to the fermemtation process of the dry leaf, the water in which it is brewed, the milk you add, to the ritual (and crockery used) in serving the beverage. Tastes change, and ultimately it’s the end user’s perception rather than the ‘tea taster‘s’ that is relevant.
The Vancouver logo could add some perspective. It wasn’t "awarded’ to an agency, but was the result of a competition opened to the public, in the early spirit of, you know, user-generated content. There too, people weren’t happy. (It was called the ‘offspring of the Michelin Man, among other things!)
But there was a difference. In Vancouver, it was the design community that protested most. In the UK it was the hoi polloi that was livid–who said the logo looked like "two characters from The Simpsons engaged in a sexual act!"
Vancouver threw the logo design open to anyone. The brief specified that the logo must."
The winners explained that it represented the "inukshuk" or that which stands in the capacity of a person" — a sort of a guide to help people find their way through the
wilderness. It stands for friendship in Inuktitut.
What does the London logo stand for? It was left to Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the 2012 Olympic commitee, who defending it saying:
"We don’t do bland. This is not a bland city"
That’s it?
Joe Gomez, from the UK sent me this, calling it an ill-fitting jigsaw, and a broken window that is"jagged and wobbly to look good on their laptops, mobiles and TV screens."
If Sebastian Coe is the equivalent of the ‘tea taster,’ I would rather trust Joe Public -you know, people like Joe.
What an exciting time to be in! Marketing, Advertising, PR and Technology used to behave like distant cousins in the same room, casting awkward glances at one another, with no common topic to get a conversation started.
In strode Social Media, and the blabbering doesn’t seem to subside! This thing we call social media (was it all ‘anti-social media before then?) is now the catchall, and the lingua franca for all groups.
Marketing used to obsess about ROI, targeting, media moments, and eyeballs; Ad folk were passionate and touchy whenever the word ‘branding’ popped up; the geeks who felt they were the only ones who truly understood measurement gleefully sprinkled acronyms and buzzwords like CTRs, stickyness, and media conversion in their sentenses.
Suddenly we’ve forgotten our differences and have stopped insulting each other at
the panel discussion table. We’re attending un-conferences about ‘engagement,’ user generated content, and the other ROI –Return on Inspiation.
This blog has always about integration, collaboration, and innovation at the edges.
I just picked up "Everything is Miscellaneous" (David Weinberger) and an odd image popped into my mind: Jimmy Wales hanging out at the Library of Congress.
I had mentally dismissed this double spread ad for Conde Nast
–or so I thought. Excuse my wanting to deconstruct the ad to make a
point. The context and scale of the photograph adds to the incongruity
of the founder of Wikipedia
perched on a railing in one corner of the Library. Its magnificient
cathedral-like arches, and everything else in balance create a great
metaphor. You just know that this guy is here to quietly turn things on
his head –in a good way, mind you.
I know why that image came to mind. The jacket cover of Miscellaneous has a blurb from Mr. Wales lovingly complaining:
Sure, it’s one of those sweeping ‘advance praise for’ comments you’ve
seen on many other jacket blurbs heaping praise on a new book about the
digital economy.
But it’s hard to exaggerate this book’s analysis. Weinberger, who co-authored The Cluetrain Manifesto,
notes that the card catalog system gives us a ‘narrow slit’ to look
through the world of books, but ‘imperfect classification’ in the
digital world, is paradoxically richer. He’s referring of course to
tags and links that create this thing called ‘social knowing’ (the term
‘social media’ isn’t in the index) by showing us connections, and
putting bits of knowledge into context.
Which is exactly what the book does, drawing on centuries of historical
precedents, to make that point of miscellany over and over again.
Companies love to invent words. To add a word or phrase to the lexicon is often thought of as an accomplishment. After all, if thousands, no millions, of people use your trademarked word or phrase, it means (a) they like you (b) they remember you and (c) the idea has spread.
We have plenty of examples of this. From brand names such as Bikini and Google to pithy slogans such as "Fair and Balanced" to the unbelievably long "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun." (If you were born after 1975, here’s who’s line that is.)
Many brand managers dream of such a nirvana when their product of service gets it into the Oxford English dictionary, right? Well…..
It was probably this kind of drunken brand-management stupor that got McDonald’s to trademark the term McJob in 1984. It was intended to be the name of a training program for handicapped people. In 2003, it Miriam-Webster recognized it as a word, as did OED before that, but with a completely different definition.
Today, McDonald’s is trying to re-define that word, and possibly delete the notion that a McJob is one with poor career prospects. They make the point that many of their top ranking people started out at the bottom.
I am with them on this. No-one belittles the Pizza delivery guys, window cleaners or the UPS drivers or the companies they work for. I’m a somewhat frequent visitor to the Golden Arches, and I’ve seen it change over the past five years. Their service is excellent, and their staff highly motivated. Can’t say the same of so many others working at big brand name stores who don’t seem like they’re lovin’ it.
I’ve always wondered why someone had not come up with a service that allowed drivers to call up someone in another car in front of them, or in the next lane.
Ome compamy has. A new service called SameLane requires drivers to register with their license plate number and a cell phone. They then put up a sticker in their window announcing they are part of the SameLane network. The SameLane mobile number (not their personal mobile number) is also displayed.
When someone in the next lane wants to call up that driver, they call theSameLane number, enter the license plate number, and the call is patched through.
It has some potential, because it’s an opt-in network, so receiving a call won’t be considered a nuisance. Privacy is maintained by the network, since SameLane says the phone number of the receiver ewill never be disclosed.
But there are potential problems, the first of which is the liability of promoting drivers, rather than passengers, to make calls while driving. SameLane compares ‘talking to strangers’ akin to chatting to someone in a Starbuck’s line. The comparison is obviously misleading.
But it’s an interesting development. Treating thousands of vehicles going in the same direction as you, as a network.
I’ve been a big fan of services such as Vonage and Skype. I’ve written about VOIP over the years. But I just discovered the ball and chain approach to retaining customers.
To cut to the chase, I asked Vonage to cancel my account since my phone does not work with another Vonage user in another part of the world –the reason we both bought the Linksys boxes and signed up.
The reality: You could do everything with Vonage, online, except cancel the service.
You have to call them, but that too, only on weekdays between 9 and 5.
Then there are the Terms of Service.
I looked at the link they had emailed me to the Terms of Service, when I signed up.
The one- or two-year term is couched in the legal-ease:
If your Service was activated on
or before January 31, 2007, the disconnection fee is waived if your
Service is disconnected one (1) year following your activation date.
Meaning: I am stuck with a one-year contract!
Isn’t there a simple straightforward way to say that in about 6 words?
How does this relate to marketing?
Whatever happened to exceeding customer’s expectations? Heck, what about their part of the contract, that I get the part of the service I signed up for?
There must be a huge disconnect between what the Customer Care people are allowed to say, and what ‘Marketing’ has asked them to say. The CSR can’t terminate my account without a penalty, but tells me about value added services. Look, I stopped him, I called to cancel my account, not to listen to your value add.
To make matters worse, my buddy tried to speak to customer care from overseas through his crippled Vonage connection The line was so bad, they didn’t understand each other.
Oh, they do have a ‘solution.’ My account has been downgraded to $5 a month for the next two months, after which I could cancel without a penalty. Brilliant marketing strategy, that.
For the next two months I can warn everyone considering Vonage to please, please, go over to Skype.
Reminds me of the anecdote I heard from Fred Reichheld (The Ultimate Question) on taking back a rental car and being slapped with a penalty after being caught in traffic. They recommended in future when he rents a car, he buys ‘protection.’ He was livid (on his podcast that is now out there) wondering if it was the car rental business or organized crime..
Steve Jobs and Shawn Fanning must be anxious about Jeff Bezos’s next move.
Apple’s ‘rip, mix, burn’ idea resonated with music fans who got a taste of Napster, and the power of peer-to-peer that Fanning had evoked.
Amazon obviously believed in the ‘Music Like Water’ analogy of Gerd Leonard and David Kusek, who have advocated in their book The Future of Music, that music would one day be ubiquitous and unlocked. Not necessarily free, but priced differently, just like tap water, basic bottled water, value added carbonated water or even premium stuff like Evian.
The news that Amazon will indeed sell DRM-free music will put this theory to the test. As many have wondered, it shifts the marketing battle between Big Record Labels vs P2P, to iTunes and Amazon. Not that it’s going to be easy to dethrone iTunes -which is also readying to sell unlocked music from EMI.
It’s not just the pricing, but the music quality, and the ‘carbonation’ factor that will matter. Oh, and the hardware. iTunes is, after all, the marketing arm of the iPod –or vice versa. Amazon has the loyal customers, Apple has the raving fans. Marketers always wish they could have the best of both.
I’ll put my money on customer loyalty, because that’s where the long tail of music will be played out.
My friend and marketing co-conspirator, James Palazzolo was always promising me he was working on his website.
Then came this. Owhata.com
It took me awhile to digest so much that has gone into a blog. Packed with insights and nuggets about cinema, music, art and of course marketing.
Reason I bring up Owhata, is how much thought he’s given to his tags, links, and copy. Google James, and his site comes up with a snappy description that’s –not accidentally– the first line of text on the site. He uses page titles that make you want to click. Consider this one: "How to save the world" which is actually asking for support for the site.
Your money keeps Starbucks open, Target running, Nintendo in business…why not me?
Not surprisingly, James is a copywriter, novelist, and techie.
Take a look at the site. You won’t be disappointed.
Who wouda thunk! Your captain, as he prepares for takeoff, is also making mental notes for his blog.
Not sure how many airlines are doing this, but it’s hardly a surprise from a company such as Southwest Airlines, that consistently allow their employees to impact their brand voice. Ray Stark, a phoenix-based captain is doing just that.
A great example for those who are in trepidation about alllowing
those without the title of communictaion or marketing in their titles
to actually have their say.
Would, say, a pizza company let it’s truck drivers comment on the
freshness of its toppings? I’ve heard many a marketing director think
only certain employees ought to be allowed to be spokespersons for the
organization. So back to Southwest. Would you allow a pilot to comment
about tornadoes he may be flying into? Ray Stark says things like this:
The moving weather depiction shows the weather just
west of MCI and heading toward the airport. Hopefully, we can arrive
(and depart) before the worst of it arrives.
But it lends a perspective that no communicator in a corporate
office would have a clue about, which is why employee blogs are so
valuable. We communicators may know a few things (or not) about split
infinitives or RSS feeds, but we could never come up with stuff like
this:
Due to the curvature of the earth, the cloud tops
were hiding out of sight over the horizon as we left PHX. We can now
start to see the mass of moisture in our path.
Which is another way of saying, kudos to Southwest Airlines! They
did break Stark’s long post into three, but they allowed him to be
himself! I used to like their cool ads.
But these are way more valuable. What do you think?
(Cross-posting this from ValleyPrBlog)
Hoipolloireport 